Your Mother is …
Your first love and your first home;
Nothing in life or death can separate you.
This is the final post in a three-part series (part 1 here) (part 2 here) sharing my quest to heal a lifelong abandonment wound from my mother. For most of my life it was unconscious yet profound, affecting most of my close relationships.
I have often pondered the relationship we have to our mothers (and families), and how we ended up in the specific lives we did. I even remember having these questions as a young child.
Until a few years ago, I believed we randomly entered our places in a story (like a lottery), lived out a haphazard one-chance set of circumstances to the best of our abilities before leaving when we were called out (perhaps to be evaluated on how we did). Hopefully, I thought, we made some progress in the evolution of our soul via this method. But from the standpoint of “waking up” or transformation into a highest version of ourselves, the one-chance-random-life model, with no continuity or guaranteed orchestration to work on specific tasks, offers little hope or plausibility. Slowly over time, primarily through reading books about documented personal accounts of NDEs and past life regressions. some with objective verifiable evidence, I began to warm up to seeing things differently.
Maybe I’m responsible for this experience I’m having. Maybe I wrote this story for myself, or planned it, or at least agreed to it, knowing that there was opportunity for soul metamorphosis through a particular pathway in this realm, based on my soul’s needs. If so, I suspect that the finer details of our lives are left unwritten as we all interact together and discover our capacities for change (or not) in each successive earth realm experience. If we make progress toward our specific purpose, we advance toward our soul’s completion. If we don’t? Wash, rinse, repeat (in a new set of circumstances but same objectives).
Contributing to the earth-as-school narrative, I learned a profound phenomenon. We arrive on this plane in a programmable state as infants. From ages 0-7 children are in a theta (hypnotic) state, presumably in order to be “programmed” for our current life role and cultural expectations, and are then at some point are thrown into a very specific life conundrum that has the potential to be overcome (actually, one that must be overcome).
We can’t accomplish our role and commission alone. We enter this Story alongside specific other characters, each with intentional roles to play—villains or saviors, antagonists or supporters—toward each other’s transformational objectives. Perhaps we designed these complex games and challenges together with these immortal co-beings from the other side, in between lifetimes. Maybe we are merely play-acting together for the experience of helping each other wake up into our true essence. Plausible or fantasy, this line of thought actually makes me feel more empowered and less victim-like in contemplation of my life’s temporary challenges and griefs.
But who are the characters that are living out (or acting out) our temporal dramas and charades with us? I suspect we have a special soul family, a familiar collective with whom we come here together to grow, play, and transform along the continuum toward our Higher Selves. Enter, our parents, our partners, our children, our closest people and profound “chance meetings” who have the power to move us and affect us. This may explain that very familiar, “at home” feeling you get when you meet people along the road of life, or conversely, that resistant, inexplicable repulsed feeling we feel toward others. You somehow feel that they cannot be strangers.
People talk about soul contracts as possible pre-agreements we made with our “soul family,” prior to re-incarnating into this realm of forgetfulness together for another round of learning/ healing/ integrating toward our soul’s purpose and completion. I can’t be certain of this, but the longer I investigate the seeming purpose and methods of this realm, the more this hypothesis makes sense.
I’m making the point that maybe all of this can be taken a bit more lightly, and more objectively, playfully. If we know that we planned our learning objectives ahead of time, knowing that we are ultimately safe amid the temporary, self-limiting hardships and difficult lessons here in this realm, we may not feel as consumed by them.
Support from the Universe
Yesterday, for fun, I pulled oracle cards from three different decks, about the three subtopics in this series: wound, reflections and projections, and integration.
I could not love these cards more.
The first card for Wound, brought me to tears: “Voyage.” We see two humpback whales, suspended between water and sky under the moon. Water is associated with our subconscious realm, including deep-seated wounds that drive us, often very tied to our childhood experiences. The moon is associated with our inner life: our emotions, closest relationships, and self-perception. In this scene, a mama whale is holding up her baby, as they are tethered together. 🥹 You could say she is guiding, sustaining, and protecting her little one as they make a long, difficult journey together (humpback whales travel some 14,000 miles per year). One of the early meanings of the word voyage was “provisions for a journey.” Among some native tribes, whales are protectors of travelers (mothers?) and guardians of the sea. The card description ends with: “No matter what your journey is and where it takes you, you have protection at your side.” 💞 For those of you who have read through the series, I don’t think I have to explain anything here about this profound card for this profound journey I’ve been on.
For Reflections and Projections, I drew “The Perfect Key.” Projections are about the mental cages we build for ourselves when we don’t recognize and integrate the unconscious pain cycles we are experiencing, and then project that pain onto others. The unhealthy aspects of relationships and experiences in our outer world are there to mirror to us the unintegrated wounds we need to see within ourselves (usually resulting from childhood traumas). But too often we remain captive to our fears, unable to face them, resulting in deflecting or projecting our pain back onto our loved ones.
On this card, a young woman looks uncertain, pensive, maybe sad, but she is holding the “perfect key” to set herself—and her heart—free. Free to let go of fear; free to love herself and others; free to accept love from others.
For Integration, the card seems self-explanatory. When we lose our way, there is always within each of us a Golden Path that leads us home…if we are courageous and persistent enough to look for it. The Golden Path contains all you need to know to find your way forward in any situation.
Whether it’s card pulling, or synchronicities, or answers to prayer, or any other method we use to communicate with the Universe, we find that we are so supported if only we take the time and intention to look for answers and connection!
More Evidence of Support
As I mentioned earlier, I previously thought we entered this realm randomly. But learning about my own natal astrology chart from a skilled, insightful astrologist recently (she “was sent” to stay at our Airbnb in January) has been revelatory and life-altering. It appears to be a legitimate blueprint (a.k.a. “soulprint”) of what I came here to do and to overcome in this world, correspondent to my most impactful experiences. Some astrologers call it your “soul’s promise,” attributing your life’s challenges and purpose as your own doing.
For example, front-and-center in my natal chart is a determinant placement of a mother wound (see my 4th house Stellium for you astro geeks). Imagine the clarity in my soul’s evolutionary path had I learned about this as a young person instead of in my 5th decade of life! Not to mention, my close intimate partnerships, my relationships to my children, and my perception of my belonging and significance in this world might have all benefitted significantly with early insight. Incidentally, my abusive father relationship (yes, “whoever” designed my life experiences was a bit overenthusiastic about my capacity to overcome challenges) is also foretold in the astrological blueprint of my natal chart (Pluto in the 10th house of father along with Saturn opposing Pluto). Also present is my gift or bent as a writer, which I knew I was going to become as a young child.
How come I never learned all of this before? It would have saved years of hide and seek with myself! Learning about my mother wound in my astrology birth chart has given me a huge boost of confidence (and forgiveness) in facing and understanding this emotionally stunting life obstacle. Aside from this knowledge, I also choose to feel supported by the current transits (planetary alignments) that are working in my favor. I mean, whether astrology is true or not, a positive belief system is always beneficial.
I recently learned that Pluto, the planet of death, transformation, “shedding an old skin,” and a “Phoenix rising from the ashes” vibe, is just completing a 15-year soul cycle this year. It takes Pluto 248 years to cycle through the Zodiac, so the end of a mini-cycle is a big deal.
Different planetary cycles affect different astrological signs in varied ways depending on elements too complex for this post, but for me this has been an impactful event. This Pluto cycle has been connected throughout this 15-year cycle to my 4th house of mother. Remember, my mother died 15 years ago, and it set off this epic healing journey for me ever since. And even before I knew that Pluto was ending a cycle, I was aware that my mother wound was ready to heal and close. But learning about this huge planetary support at this time adds massive motherly healing energy to my quest. From (Astrology.com), “When Pluto transits the 4th house, it triggers a time of profound psychological and emotional transformation. This transit can bring buried emotions to the surface, forcing the individual to confront and release deep-rooted issues related to their family and sense of security.”
Full Circle
The mother-child relationship is profound, linking through time and beyond time. I think this biological link that preserves mothers and grandmothers DNA in children and grandchildren, is meant to teach us metaphorically (and literally) that you cannot take the mother out of the child, nor the child out of the mother. We are perhaps forever linked, bonded, protected, and guided in our soul Voyage with Mama Whale through time and eternity—a spiritual guidance system that we all carry within us, even if our biological mothers were not there for us. Ultimately, we have what we need within us—The Golden Path—to be our own mothers (AND fathers).
I AM my own re-Source (microcosm of the macrocosm).
I AM the Love and Perfect Love casts out all fear
(all lack, limit, loss, and lostness).
My daughter who became a mama in the past 2.5 years, synchronously wrote a poem this week entitled, “Mama Knows.”
But mama knows what you need my love.
You’ve taught me
To take what’s helpful
and leave the rest behind.
Protect. Our. Peace.
You teach me every day.
My confidence grows.
Mama knows.
I will do my very best
Every day.
Trust my intuition and know
The universe is providing.
We dance in love and figuring each other out.
More and more every day
Our love grows.
And mama knows 💜
~Danielle Johnson Brown
Next week, join me as I begin to explore subtopics from my forthcoming book. I don’t want to give away the topic or title yet, but I’m super excited to start delving into some juicy new material!